Wallumrød

Pianist and composer Christian Wallumrød releases a sequel to the album Pianokammer from 2015.

NO BIRCH, by the Christian Wallumrod Trio (Import, 2008),is a beautifully realized album of atmospheric, moody, spare, gorgeous Jazz. This is the kind of music to listen to driving along a lonely stretch of road on a rainy, moody afternoon as the sun is about to set. There is a cinematic quality to the music this trio creates empoying just piano, trumpet and percussion.

These voices are like no choir you ever heard. They can form pale clouds of sound, or pools of glowing light, or bright shafts of pure sound. Phrases can soar before suddenly reversing direction and travelling backwards, but along a different tangent. Rising from the luminous sound beds — sometimes lush, sometimes austere – float a disembodied melody from an ancient world, an overheard conversation, a whisper from the past, the rumblings of a distant storm, the babble of children, or something that sounds like the ambient chatter of an asteroid belt. The individual strands cluster, entwine, swell, and then disperse, perhaps to leave a single voice exposed in all its natural beauty before others return to take up its cues and head off in a new direction.

What must be heard by contemporary jazz generalists as a typical ECM type European music creation, pianist Christian Wallumrod has conjured up a nomadic series of themes that touch on various strains of ethnic music. Echoes of classical and chamber musics, and Manfred Eicher's brand of tonally reserved, emotionally balanced, and coolly rendered sounds provide a rich but predictable musical palette. The title A Year from Easter might suggest many themes of hope, looking forward, sudden dismay, prayers for peace and justice, and post-distress emergence.

Harpist Giovanna Pessi has previously been heard on ECM recordings with Christian Wallumrod and with Rolf Lislevand. On her first leader date for ECM she introduces a unique project of old and new songs in which 17th century pieces by Henry Purcell are interspersed with 20th century ballads of Leonard Cohen and Nick Drake and 21st century songs of Susanna Wallumrod, all rendered timeless by the ‘early music’ instrumentation and Susanna’s pure, understated vocal style.

Old-school musique concrete interludes and electronic add-ons mark the revered Ensemble’s masterly new album, which both summarises their unique career so far, and jumps boldly into the unknown.

Where the typical ECM continental European chamber sound has been associated with Norwegian pianist Christian Wallumrod, Fabula Suite Lugano adds a new, expansive flavor to what might be expected. This rather ambitious program features a core ensemble, but the sounds are bigger or smaller depending on the inspiration or thematic concept. At the center of many tracks is the violin and viola of Gjermund Larsen and cellist Tanja Orning, but the Baroque harp, as played by Giovanna Pessi, adds more bright colors, while the lone horn (trumpet) of Eivind Lonnig completes the cycle of mystery to this spatial, in-the-main haunting music.